The heat is being turned up on Google over its recent WiFi data collection incident. Two members of Congress have now sent a letter to the FTC asking a series of questions about how Google's actions might be covered by federal law and what actions the FTC might take. The letter is short and sweet, but it shows that there is growing concern in Congress over Google's "mistake."

The letter, signed by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), first asks if the FTC has begun investigating the issue and what the Commission's understanding is of the type of data collected. Who had access to the data? Did Google collect people's passwords? Did the company violate the public's expectation of privacy? Were Google's actions illegal?

These are all questions that the two congressmen want the FTC to answer by June 2. Of course, they're not the only ones asking the FTC to take a look into Google's gaffe—earlier this week, public interest group Consumer Watchdog also called on the agency to investigate Google's "flagrant intrusion into consumers' privacy." German authorities have also demanded that Google hand over the hard drives it used to store the data.

Google's voluntary admission definitely touched a sensitive nerve with lawmakers and the public alike, and the company is now paying the price—at least in terms of increased scrutiny. The search giant has arguably been walking on thin ice when it comes to perceptions of how it protects its users' privacy, but in this case, it may have softened the blow (slightly) by coming out about the "mistake" before anyone else noticed.

Update: Google's data collection mistake is now also the subject of a class action lawsuit out of Oregon. The plaintiffs alleged that "hundreds if not thousands of Google employees throughout the United States and the world have access to data maintained on Google's servers." EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding has also accused the company of flouting EU privacy regulations.

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Google unveiled new APIs for its Buzz social networking service on Wednesday during a presentation at the company's I/O developer conference. The new APIs will make it possible for third-party developers to write software—such as desktop and mobile client applications—that can read and post content on Buzz. The Buzz APIs are built on top of open standards to enable broad compatibility with other services.

Google's Chris Chabot started the session by describing Google's vision for social networking. The Web is becoming increasingly social, he explained, but social networking is heavily fragmented due to the multitude of disparate services that are popular among users. Google hopes to unify social networking and make it a pervasive part of the Internet experience, but not at the cost of diversity and rich competition in the marketplace. The solution, said Chabot, is to facilitate interoperability through open standards. He said that Google wants Buzz to be part of a bigger ecosystem, one that includes a healthy quantity of good third-party software.

Facebook has found itself facing some tough choices when it comes to the direction of the company, specifically revolving around user privacy. As most Netizens know, Facebook has faced harsh criticism in recent months—which may be coming to a head after having built up slowly over the years—regarding how it handles user information. Now, the company is left deciding whether it wants to revert to its old principles and go against founder Mark Zuckerberg's policy of forging ahead, privacy be damned.

Facebook public policy head Tim Sparapani said in a radio interview Tuesday that the company was working on simplifying its privacy controls because of user complaints about their complexity. "I think we are going to work on that. We are going to be providing options for users who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from and I think we will see that in the next couple of weeks," he said.

During the opening keynote at the Google I/O conference this morning in San Francisco, the search giant unveiled new Web technologies and reaffirmed its commitment to open standards.

Vic Gundotra, Google's VP of engineering, started the keynote by highlighting the waning relevance of desktop applications and discussing the significance of software's ascent into the cloud. The most important applications today are Web apps, he said. Although the Web has transformed the way that software is developed, deployed, and consumed, it has introduced new challenges that have to be overcome before it can fulfill its potential. The Web is growing up, Gundotra remarked, but the diverse ecosystem of Internet stakeholders must work together to ensure that it continues to advance.

With the profusion of information available on the Web, search engines have become a key mediator by directing people to the information they're interested in. But that has also turned the search engines into gatekeepers; both by ranking the results and by offering suggested search terms, the sites can subtly (and, in some cases, not so subtly) influence the sorts of information that a significant fraction of the public will encounter. A new survey of Google search terms looks into how this is playing out when it comes to information on nanotechnology. The researchers found that both suggested queries and search results may be pushing that field down a path that is similar to the one that was traveled by genetically modified foods, where an initial focus on technology and applications has been replaced by worries about health and ethical issues.

Nanotechnology is a sprawling field that is based on a simple observation: the properties of many familiar materials are completely different when they are structured at the nanometer scale. So, for example, differences between bulk gold and gold nanoparticles include color, melting point, and electronic properties. Our ability to control the bulk production of nanostructured materials is a relatively recent development, and it holds both promises and risks.

Movies, TV shows, software, games, porn, and music are the usual topics of conversation when it comes to any discussion about online piracy. After all, those types of media make up the lion's share of content found via P2P. Still, the online world has opened the doors to sharing all manner of ideas and intellectual property besides these obvious examples, and there are a few unexpected types of content that get ripped off pretty often, thanks to the Internet.

Everybody is wondering who is in charge at Wikipedia ever since Fox News reported that founder Jimmy Wales has relinquished some control over the site's material. The story claimed that, following Wales' alleged attempt to delete a slew of pornographic images from the site, he has been denied the right "to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content."

That's something Wales supposedly started doing following a Wikipedia cofounder's letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation claiming that Wikimedia Commons "may be knowingly distributing child pornography."

After months of consideration, Best Buy is making its foray into digital video downloading by buying the rights to the CinemaNow name. Sonic Solutions, which purchased CinemaNow in 2007, will continue to maintain the back-end technology for the service, while Best Buy will focus on marketing and selling the service to consumers. The service will launch soon, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Best Buy had originally planned to build its own branded service using Sonic Solutions' CinemaNow technology, much as Blockbuster did early last year. However, the company later decided to partner directly with Sonic Solutions, acquiring the rights to the CinemaNow name. "It ended up being the perfect marriage because Sonic was not looking to be customer-facing," Ryan Pirozzi, Best Buy's director of digital media, told the LA Times.

Customers will be able to stream movies directly to their computers via the CinemaNow website. In addition, Best Buy is partnering with LG to add built-in support to its Blu-ray players. It will also add support for CinemaNow to Internet-connected devices from its own Insignia house brand. 

According to the Associated Press, rentals will cost about $4 while purchases will cost about $15. CinemaNow will also have releases on the same day that DVDs go on sale, unlike rival service Netflix, which won't be able to offer videos until 30 days after DVD release.

Best Buy's move into digital video downloads now is a hedge against a future decline in physical media sales, though Pirozzi doesn't expect downloads to begin to outstrip DVDs and Blu-ray discs until sometime after 2012. Best Buy also distributes digital music via its acquisition of Napster, and DSL and VoIP services via its acquisition of Speakeasy.

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